5 promising online startups in finance space

Making financial decisions have always been a daunting task for an Indian middle class retail consumer. With a variety of products and schemes available in the market, it becomes absolutely difficult for an individual to judge the best for him. In order to ease out this difficulty, many entrepreneurs have taken an initiative to bring forwarded a one stop destination for all investment needs of the consumer.

Here are some of the e-finance support portals in the personal finance management space trying to make small investments areas more transparent, comparative, analytical and simple:

A venture of Indian School of Business alumni and technology specialists, Moneyivy simplifies the personal finance decision making through its financial product comparison platform. The site provides the user with detailed research on each financial product and a suite of decision support tools such as Group deals, EMI calculator, etc. Currently been marketed as an online personal finance supermarket, offering a risk based asset allocation strategy to the retail customers. The site also provides transaction facility over an aggregator platform which has the ability to underwrite financial products in real time.

Currently still operating in private beta, futurewise help people manage their finances in a stress free way. The venture aim to foster a community where people are no longer swayed by market movements but are instead focused on their goals. The site features personalized recommendations, timely alerts, concise portfolio report etc and provides fee based financial planning to the registered consumers.

A first of its kind venture globally and with an online portfolio of four scientifically selected mutual funds, Scripbox aims at eliminating the hassles of making choice from more than 5000 mutual funds available in the market. The mutual funds selected are based on a Proprietary algorithm which is based on research and data analysis, after tracking mutual funds over 11 years, along with other metrics such as fund’s 4 years track record, whether its a small fund, etc.

The user can sign up on the website to create a scripbox for the current portfolio can later renew it in case there is any change in portfolio. After registration, scripbox gets linked to users bank account to ease out transactions. There is no lock in period and user can begin with an initial investment of INR 5000. Also, the facility to keep a joint account to a maximum of 3 people is also provided.

The company raises its revenue from the AMC’s, in the form of commission depending on how long the user remains invested with them, however claims that there selection of funds remain unbiased and not dependent on commission received.

Widely considered to be one of the most beginner friendly investment portals, Investopresto provides a web based application that helps small investors in India make smart investment decisions. It allows user to open a trading account on the site while providing best stock picks trading on the BSE and NSE, mutual funds, fixed deposits and gold.

The site provides add on features such as virtual stock trading to help individual investors formulate investment strategies, select and track investments based on their individual risk profiles, unique constraints and market conditions. The company is also planning to add ULIPs and other insurance products, home loans, gold loans and personal loans.

The company has recently raised an undisclosed amount from its existing investor Crystal Horse. The previous funding include seed round of S$240k in 2011, S$ 56k in 2012 subsequently followed by another round of S$ 300k in 2012.

Cleartax aims to design a platform for Individuals to prepare and file their Income Tax Returns in the shortest time while maximising their tax deductions. The self e-filing of returns is completely free. However, the charges apply if asked for assistance of a CA in a range of INR 499 – INR 999 or membership based services for INR 2100. The site also provides the feature of bulk e-filings with a complete guide to tax filing and Form 16 auto-read facility. also, The company was also a part of the Microsoft BizSpark program.